The many pictures presented to us of the mental and physical condition of a great portion of our fellow-creatures kept at the slave-like labour of the factory, are appalling, and I fear they are true: _this_ is unquestionably so, that children from nine to twelve years of age (and many _have_ been worked from the age of _five_) are locked up for six days in the week, for twelve hours every day, in a warm artificial temperature, instead of breathing the free air of heaven; they are looked upon as parts of the machinery, and must move accordingly; with this difference, that while human genius is always at work to devise improvements in inanimate complications, and to keep them in the highest state of order, the condition of the living soul and body is in too many instances neglected altogether. There is a wear and tear of human life, and an accumulation of moral corruption, which it is frightful to think of. When work is in good demand, the joint labours of the parent and their children earn considerable weekly wages. There is then plenty of bread and butter and some bacon for the children, and beer and gin besides for their parents; but nothing is saved for less prosperous times, and the family is not eventually the better for the short run of high earnings. The want of a bit of land is more serious than many will believe, not only in its effect upon health, but upon moral conduct also. Among some facts published by the London Labourers’ Friend Society, are the details of the complete reformation of twelve men, who had been severally committed to gaol for different offences of a very serious nature, in consequence of their obtaining portions of land, varying from two acres and a half to one rood; and I may add, that out of eighty occupants of land-allotments in the same neighbourhood, there has been only one case of robbery within seven years. Some of the foregoing remarks tend to show that the Irish poor would not gain in happiness by the establishment of the modern British factory system among them, unless the advantage of a _little_ land could be afforded them at the same time. A proof of this exists in the altered circumstances of the people who were once employed in the domestic manufacture of linen in Ulster. These had a patch of land, to which they could at pleasure turn from the loom and the reel; and as the labour of their children was not prematurely demanded, they could enjoy the green fields or the garden, and be employed in school, with a certainty of substantial food (instead of bad coffee and adulterated tea), until they attained the age of thirteen or fourteen, when they could take an active part in the labour of the loom.